


feel better soon

by blindbatalex



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Pining, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29444811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: In 2006, a feverish Gary shows up at Jamie's door believing it to be Phil's, in 2017, Jamie is sick and Gary doesn't trust him to find his way home, and the past blends into the present.
Relationships: Jamie Carragher/Gary Neville
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	feel better soon

**Author's Note:**

> I am stressed so I wrote this in a single day. It was written mostly for myself but you can read it too, if you'd like.

“Hi Phil! It’s me, your favourite brother. S’rry I’m a bit late for dinner.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. Yet another drunkard at his front gate, making him get up from his exceedingly comfortable sofa for nothing after a hard day of training, and worse—this one was a Manc too, judging from the awful accent.

“Piss off, mate, or-” he started saying into the intercom, intending to finish it with ‘or I’ll call the cops.’ But the bloke chose just that moment to turn towards the camera, so that his grainy face filled up the entire screen, and the words died on Jamie’s lips. “Gary Neville?”

What on earth was Gary Neville doing at his door?

“Who were you expecting, Prince Charles?” The United captain huffed. Gary Neville? At his door? Had Jamie died and gone to hell for all of his sins? Was he hallucinating? “Quit it and buzz the gate Philip; I am _freezing_ out here.”

The bloke certainly sounded real enough. He also sounded drunk out of his mind. Jamie growled quietly. 

The thing is, he would love to ignore last couple of minutes and go back to his movie like nothing happened but if Neville got hit by a car or froze to death so close to his home, he would get into massive trouble, and doubly so after the events of the last derby. Left with no choice, he buzzed the gate open.

“Fucking finally you muppet,” Neville said as he stumbled his way towards the house.

***

_Jamie._

Jamie startles awake. Gary is still sitting across from him; outside, grey suburbs are gliding past them. His head feels like it’s filled with cotton.

“Are we in Liverpool yet?” 

Suburbs all blend together at some point. They could be anywhere as far as he knows. 

“Would I still be here if we were in Liverpool,” Gary smirks at him, like he is being daft. “We are about to pull into Manchester.”

Jamie hates him.

“Why’d you wake me, then?”

“You don’t look so good.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Jamie scoffs, re-rolling his scarf into a makeshift pillow. He’s been feeling awful since the morning and it only got worse during the day. “That’s why I was trying to get some sleep.” 

Just like Gary, honestly, to see a sick man and bother him on purpose. For all the distance they have come, he is still a twat in his core.

“How will you get home?”

And he is still going on. Jamie doesn’t bother opening his eyes and pulls his fleece tighter around himself instead to eke some warmth out of it. “Taxi.” Same as he always does.

“And where do you live?”

“Honestly, Gary!” Jamie sits up again. What has a man got to do around these parts to be able to get some rest. Gary wants him to recite his address, fine, he will recite his address just to get him off his back.

“37-” 

He stops. 

What was the street name? West something. Or is it East? His head feels so heavy. Doesn’t matter though, because he has it saved on his mobile. He fishes it out, without looking at Gary because he has no doubt the bastard is enjoying this very much, but- Huh. He presses the side button again and then one more time. The screen stays resolutely black.

“It won’t…turn on,” he mutters. Is it out of charge? He just wants to go back to sleep.

“Just like I thought,” comes the annoying Manc voice.

“I will open our window and throw you out.”

Jamie will. He has grown fond of Mr Neville, working with him on MNF for some years but he will if he doesn’t cut this out and let him sleep.

“Look-” A hand—Gary’s hand?—closes over his on the table that separates them, warm and gentle. Jamie shivers, not because of the sudden touch but because he is sick. His body does not yearn to drink it in, to have more of it. No sir. “You are almost certainly running a temperature,” Gary continues, “and I don’t trust you to make it home in one piece. Why don’t you get off in Manchester with me and you can sleep it off at mine?”

Right. And he might as well grow wings and start flying while he is at it. This is bad though, if he is hallucinating.

“Sure thing,” he says, to the kind, much nicer version of Gary his feverish mind has conjured. 

***

“This is un-believable,” Jamie said, now at the front door to meet him, just as Neville said “Phil, why do you look so ugly?”

He was a mess, from his unkempt hair to his coat hanging half open; his face was flushed and sweaty. _And_ he kept calling Jamie Phil for some unfathomable reason. Who even was- _oh._ It was his brother, wasn’t it, who had just moved to Everton at the start of the season. Which might explain why he was in Liverpool, but-

“I am so cold,” Neville said and then proceeded to cough heartily, more or less right in Jamie’s face. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“S’rry, I’m-”

“How much did you even have to drink?”

Jamie had first hand knowledge, of course, of how Neville was a lightweight when it came to alcohol but how much did even he needed to drink to mistake Jamie of all people for his own brother? They looked nothing alike. It was pathetic, was what it was—the almighty United captain, showing up at the doorstep of someone he despised. 

“Haven’t been drinking.” Neville shook his head, and then before Jamie could stop him- “here, smell-” he was all up in Jamie’s personal space. Jamie shoved him back on instinct, and the push sent the bloke stumbling backwards until he was flat on his arse on the driveway.

“Oww,” he said like a petulant child, rubbing at his backside, frowning at Jamie with those ugly eyes of his. How was any of this even happening? But Neville was right in that he did not smell of alcohol at all. He coughed again from where he half-sat-half-lay-down on the ground and- Jamie strode up to him, squatted, and put a hand on his forehead. And just as he thought- Neville was burning up. Because the one thing better than a drunk Manc bastard at his front door was one delirious with fever. 

He yanked Neville up by his arm. 

“Alright, up you go.” 

His mum said God always punished those who strayed from the true path with misfortune sooner or later. Neville whined, and at the same time, leaned on him for support as Jamie dragged both of them inside. 

He really should have listened to her when he still had the chance.

***

_Jamie._

Jamie swats his hand in the direction of Gary’s voice, as if it is a mosquito he can kill with a bit of good luck.

“Not you again.”

“Come on.” A heavy piece of fabric lands on his lap with enough force to startle him. “We are about to pull into Piccadilly. Get a move on.”

Jamie cracks his eyes open against his will, just a tad. Gary is standing over him, coat, gloves, hat and scarf already on.

“But I dreamt that.”

There is no way Gary actually invited him over to his own place because Jamie has come down with the flu.

“Yeah, I’m afraid not.” He kicks Jamie in the shin, not so gently at all. “Come on up.”

_Huh_ , Jamie thinks as he staggers to his feet and puts his coat on. He hopes it’s his coat at least. Wouldn’t be very polite if it was someone else’s.

Gary is already beckoning him towards the door, two suitcases in hand.

***

“Hello, Phil, this is Jamie Carragher.”

For a moment all Jamie could hear at the other end of the line was background noise. Then Phil said-

“Carragher? What is this, Armageddon?”

And this is why he was the less unpleasant Neville brother, by a mile. This and the fact that he did not go charging towards Liverpool fans, pointing at his badge like a maniac, because his team scored a goal in a derby.

“Might just be. I have your brother here with me.”

Gary Neville was now- nope, he was no longer sat at the sofa but instead standing in front of one of Jamie’s Liverpool FC art pieces and trying to remove it from the wall with unsteady hands. 

“Who? Gary?”

‘No, Prince Charles,’ Jamie thought but he bit his tongue. 

“The one and only. He is quite feverish I’m afraid and seems to think I’m you—well, you but uglier.”

Phil barked a short laugh at this. “Christ-” he said, and Jamie could practically see him pressing at his eyeballs. “-he was supposed to come over for dinner.”

To the older Neville’s credit, he was running a 39.6C fever, and it made sense his mental faculties were not all there at the moment. (They weren’t all there when they played against each other, either, but that was a different story for a different day.) Phil on the other hand- how did one forget dinner plans with one’s own family? Was Gary that unpleasant in his personal life too that Phil would rather block him out of his mind altogether? 

“Yes,” Jamie kept his voice neutral and friendly. “He said so as well.”

“Is he-?”

“Out of his mind? _Yes_ ,” Jamie said, not bothering to hide his frustration. His primary objective right now was to get this twat off his hands, and sooner the younger Neville realised the gravity of the situation and got his arse over here, the better.

But Phil only laughed again in return, sounding a bit deranged himself.

“He uh- gets that way every time he runs even a slight temperature, uh-” There were shuffling noises as Phil talked to someone else for a second. Jamie did not catch much of it but he did make out the words ‘doctor’ and ‘will be okay’.

“Are you- quite alright?” Jamie found himself asking. Where was Phil Neville anyway? He never wanted to care this much—or for that matter, at all—about any member of the Neville family.

“I, uh- yeah. It’s just, my youngest is running a high fever. We are at the A&E now.”

_Christ_. Just as Jamie’s luck would have it, the entire Neville family was struck down by the plague. There was more shuffling on the other end of the line and the sound of a baby crying.

“Listen, I hate to do this,” Phil said and Jamie’s heart sank. Nothing good could follow that opening. “-but could you possibly look after Gary for a couple of hours? I will do my best to find someone to pick him up as soon as I can.”

What could Jamie say? The baby—no doubt Phil’s baby—kept crying in the background in full, heartrending sobs. Can’t one of your lot drive from Manchester, he thought, but, all of the United squad—all of them who were currently fit, anyway—were in London for an away game.

“Don’t worry about it. Best of luck with your-” Was Phil’s youngest a boy or a girl? “- _child_.”

“Thanks, mate,” Phil said, before he added hurriedly, “you might have to take him in if his temperature goes above 40C but usually Ibuprofen does the trick. Make sure he eats something first, though, or he will barf.” 

And then, before Jamie could say anything else, he was gone.

Jamie sighed, wondering what on earth he did to deserve this kind of punishment.

***

“Jamie.”

“Now what?”

Has this man done anything else except call his name?

“We are here, mate.”

Jamie once again opens his eyes against his will. 

Here, as it turns out, is in front of Gary’s home. Gary opens his door and it brings an icy gust of air from the outside, turning Jamie into a human icicle in an instant. But needs must, so he opens his own door as well and follows after him, stepping into the haze of dusk.

“Why are you doing this?”

Gary turns towards him and chuckles.

“I owe you one, don’t I?”

Jamie has just been dreaming about that actually, but-

“It was years ago. I didn’t…” It’s strange being outside in the dusk—or dawn, for that matter, but Jamie is rarely outside that early—shadows grow flesh and murmur softly to one another, and nothing feels quite real. He blinks to try and focus. “You don’t owe me.”

Gary’s smile is- is- it must be the dusk, working its magic around the corners of his lips, making them appear much gentler than they are. Fond.

“We are mates, aren’t we?” Gary holds the door open for him.

“Are we?”

Last time Jamie checked, they definitely weren’t. But it’s warm inside and there is a sofa in sight, peeking through an ajar door just at the end of the hallway, and Jamie has his priorities set up straight.

***

“Oi, stop that.”

Neville had managed to dislocate one of the corners of the frame so that it was now swaying dangerously around the other corner. He turned to look at Jamie.

“For shame, Philip you play for-” He frowned. He was one of the most hideous men Jamie ever saw. You know how sometimes you meet a person and you think ‘huh they are alright looking,’ and as you get to know them more and more, they grow in beauty, as if the goodness of their heart and your love for them reflects on their face. It was the exact opposite of that with Neville. His beady eyes glinted with evil and his thin moustache was that of a rat’s—even if he looked a bit like a drowned rat at the moment, pitiful with his flushed cheeks and pale skin.

“You are not Phil.”

Jamie put a hand on his shoulder and steered him away from the painting.

“You are a sharp one, aren’t you?”

Neville stopped mid-way to their destination. “Carragher?” In an instant, he ducked away from under Jamie’s arm and looked around him wildly. His eyes were lit up with recognition—and with it, proper hatred—for the first time tonight. “Where am I? Did you kidnap me?”

Things Jamie would give to say ‘yes Gary, I had nothing better to do on a Thursday night so I kidnapped you and brought you here,’ but then, knowing him, Gary might bolt out the door and right into the street, screaming murder, and that was not press either of them needed at the moment.

So, he smiled instead.

“You are a bit mixed up right now, running a bit of a fever. You came here thinking it was Phil’s house, remember?”

Gary was frowning so hard, Jamie practically see the gears turning in his head as he tried to make sense of things. 

“Let’s get you to the sofa, shall we?” Jamie said, approaching him slowly like you would a wounded hyena. He had done nothing to deserve this fate.

“Why’d you let me in?” 

Jamie put a hand on Gary’s arm and Gary did not bolt. Success.

“Because I’m a decent person, aren’t I?”

“I’d have let you freeze.”

Jamie finally got him to sit down.

“I know you would, mate.”

And he did. Jamie loved his club like his own flesh and blood, and hated anything Manchester United, but Gary was on a different level entirely. Just the image of him running towards the Liverpool fans, grabbing his badge in the sunlight, made his blood boil. They were both going to owe him after this, both Gary and Phil.

Hard to believe they’d hooked up one time when Jamie was 18 and Gary was 21, and for the briefest of moments, Jamie thought- _huh_.

***

“Do you remember that night?”

A beach in a small coastal town in Spain, its name shrouded now in a haze. The rhythmic pull of the waves as they crash gently against the shore. The skies ablaze with a thousand stars. And Gary sat there next to him. What are the odds they would select the same town at the same time to holiday? The odds they would find themselves here on this sandy beach, both demanding they claimed the spot first and hence the other should move some distance away?

He hasn’t played against Gary then, not yet. Gary laughs and the breeze gently plays in his hair.

Gary laughs now too.

“When I showed up at your door, convinced you were Phil? Not my finest moment by a long shot.”

He has led Jamie to a guest room—best one in the house he said, with a wink—forbade him from sleeping in his suit. His laugh is not too bad really, and he is not beautiful, but there is something to his eyes, to the way his lips curl into a smile.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jamie says. It doesn’t. Gary looks at him for a moment then, stood there by the door, the light from the hallway casting a halo around his shoulders, his head, and Jamie thinks he knows. Then he nods and walks out, leaving the door ajar in case Jamie needs anything.

***

Phil showed up—finally—at 11pm. He looked almost as wild as his brother, hair pulled in every which direction.

“Is-?”

“She is fine—back home now. How is my brother? Has he driven you insane yet?”

Phil flashed him an easy, lop-sided smile, the same one Gary did on a beach a long time ago. Jamie didn’t like Phil on principle either—well, maybe these days he liked him a tad more, now that he played for the club Jamie could never properly hate—but he was much more preferable to Gary. He returned the man’s smile, letting him in.

“Just about. But his temperature is down, he is asleep, and, I kept him from smashing up any of my Liverpool art, so- could be much worse.”

He led Phil to the guest room Gary was sleeping in, still fully clad, and then he wandered back downstairs, leaving Phil to deal with his brother—he had no intention to spend any more time with Gary than he had to. They came downstairs a few minutes later.

“Thank you for this; you have no idea,” Phil said. And maybe, Jamie did like him after all, just a bit. 

Gary said nothing, just glared at him with open hostility. Jamie could tell he was lucid. He expected, though, nothing less. And Jamie was glad to be rid of him too, for once and all.

***

“Jamie? What are you doing?”

Gary shuffles towards him in the hallway, half buried in shadow. Jamie lays the giant frame in his arms on the floor, against the wall. It contains a minimalistic painting of Old Trafford.

“Revenge. For eleven years ago.”

Gary frowns at him for a second, confused, and then he starts laughing. It rings in the hallway, open and heartfelt.

“I did that, didn’t I?”

“You were worst house guest I ever had—by far.”

“Oh come on, I wasn’t _that_ bad.”

“You accused me of kidnapping you!”

Gary cracks up again.

“Yeah, well, I lose my head the second I get a fever. Always have. You’ve done very well today in comparison.” He reaches out to put a hand on Jamie’s forehead and Jamie lets him. Gary’s hand is neither cool, nor warm to the touch, but it is nice. He looks pleased as he withdraws it. “Your temperature is down.”

Jamie smiles at him. “I feel loads better.” Something in his chest aches, throbs, right behind his sternum but that’s not a symptom Gary needs to know about. He would get worked up for no reason at all, intense as he is.

“I’m glad.”

Jamie turns to look at him, standing there in his pyjamas and bed-hair. 

“Thanks for tonight.”

“That’s what-”

“Friends are for?” Jamie completes his sentence for him, indulging himself a grin. 

“Well-” Gary’s face scrunches up in an instant. “I’m not sure I would go that far.”

They should go back to bed, now that Jamie’s revenge mission is complete. It is 3am in the morning—both too early and too late. 

“That’s what you said when we came in—‘we are mates, aren’t we?’”

He starts towards his room and Gary falls in step.

“That doesn’t count. I was trying to make sure you didn’t run away.”

“Where would I run Gary, in my condition? Besides, no takebacks. You said so and I heard it with my own ears.”

Gary’s bedroom is the first door. He stands at the threshold and Jamie stops too, some distance from him.

“What is this, kindergarten?”

“You are certainly acting like a six-year-old.”

Gary smiles, and for a moment he looks much younger than he is, in the soft beam of light that falls on him from inside the room.

“Go to bed James.”

“You too, my dear friend.”

Last thing Jamie hears as he turns to find his own room is the sound of Gary snorting.

***

Gary called him the next morning—woke him up in fact, seeing as he was calling at 8am.

“Carragher,” he said, his voice tightly wound, and then said nothing else for the next several seconds. 

For God’s sake. Jamie cleared his throat forcefully. Was the man aware of the time? 

“I- well, thank you, for last night. I’m very susceptible to fevers and well- I’m sorry.”

Jamie chuckled to himself. That was certainly a first.

“You _were_ quite rude.”

“Yes I am aware, which is why I apologised.”

“You thought I kidnapped ya,” Jamie pressed on. “Made a right fool out of yourself—showing up at my door, demanding to be let in. Do you even realise what team you-”

Gary hissed audibly and then he hung up without saying another word. 

Jamie wondered later, the next time they met on the pitch, whether it would have made a difference if he had been a tad nicer on that phone call. If Gary would at least greet him after the game—not because Jamie wanted to talk to him, God no, but because he thought that little gratitude was his due.

Then again, perhaps not. After all, Gary had treated him with this same level of hostility the first time they met on the pitch some months after Spain too. That’s who he was.

***

Gary drives him home the next morning, despite Jamie’s protests that he should just drop him off at the train station. They bicker over the music selection and talk about football. Fields and towns roll past them in the same dull grey of yesterday.

Jamie wants to ask him inside when they reach his house. But he is sick and Gary no doubt has things he wants to do with his day. 

“Carragher.”

He stops with his hand on the door handle and looks at Gary. 

“Yeah?”

His last name sounds oddly serious on Gary’s lips; they curl now into a faint smile, and for a moment Jamie thinks-

But all Gary says is for him to feel better soon.

**Author's Note:**

> You know the drill -- I know I am behind on replying to older comments but they really do make my day and replenish my writing energies, so if you did like this story please drop me a word below. I'm at @blindbatalex on tumblr and my inbox is always open for fannish yelling.
> 
> Most importantly, happy Valentine's day! I appreciate all ten of you, friends.


End file.
